MeNotMe

OK, I'm game. I chose to attend South Carolina this fall, after having the decision come down to South Carolina and LSU. I received six funded offers out of seven applications (the others being Tennessee, Louisiana-Lafayette, UNC Greensboro and Texas Woman's University; I was rejected at Auburn). It was a difficult decision between SC and LSU, but what swung the balance is SC's strength in rhetoric, whereas LSU struck me as much stronger in literature. Were I a lit guy, those two schools would have made for a difficult choice as well, but because I am a rhetoric and critical theory scholar and teacher, I felt South Carolina had the more formidable program, with more concentrated/directed offerings, and a better job placement record for rhet graduates. LSU has a fair number of postdocs, and while they are primarily in literature and for reasons I completely understand, I went with the better track record for TT hires. Rhet/comp won't always be the jobs powerhouse it has been, and perhaps the balance has already tipped, but it remains a more promising field for prospective employment. I enjoy literature, but more as a vehicle for rhetorical criticism, and my pedagogy from 18+ years of teaching is steeped in rhetoric wherever I find it. I, too, have been out of school for a long time--a decade and a half--and perhaps that played into my conservatism in selecting a program with some rhetoric bona fides. I have heard the argument that one can be "too old," even on this board, but the trajectory of my life strongly argues otherwise. I was told I was "too old" to get work with my master's, and then I was told I was "too old" to find work with my J.D., and neither held true. So I will be ancient, I guess, upon graduating with my PhD, and yet I am attending South Carolina more for the experience, the internal and highly personal joy I get from setting goals and achieving them, than for any hope of living "the narrative" job-wise. I selected South Carolina because it felt right, because I felt comfortable with the faculty with whom I spoke and the courses and exams I am slated to take. I visited Columbia and found it delightful, a far cry from the brown, dry, barren nothingburger that is inland Southern California. For this major life change, my third (or have I lost count?), I wanted a city and a program that felt comfortable yet challenging, rigorous yet supportive. South Carolina's stipend is low, but the five guaranteed years helped, and the personal attention I received throughout the application process from the wonderful DGS, other faculty, and students current and former ultimately convinced me that South Carolina should be the choice. LSU did nothing wrong, but fell consistently short, in slight and not-so-slight ways, across the board. I didn't let a few hundred extra dollars each month cloud my sight of what was best, long term. We talk about the "best package," and yet there must be an intangible aspect to "best," because stipends are for the most part concentrated between "meager" and "slightly less meager, but still hilarious if uttered out loud." So it's South Carolina for me. I'd like to hear about others' decisions, and congratulate you all for taking this exciting and wholly necessary step to maximize our experience on this Earth. Take care and be well, everyone.

I second the Manhattan Prep verbal GRE materials. I was a longtime Princeton Review guy, but I switched to Manhattan Prep for my first crack at the GRE in more than a decade, and I felt so prepared for test day, a feeling seconded by my test score. Please note, MP's program is harder than the actual test--they even tell you that--so you can be sure you're ready. Just a great experience.

I'd advise you to wait and reapply, based on what you've said. FWIW, I had a great offer from a strong PhD program this season, one that I was sorely tempted to take, but which was not an ideal fit for my research interests and job prospects. I would have felt "stuck" with that degree, casting my lot with a set of unknowns and uncomfortable compromises that would be on my resume for all time. Because grad school (esp. the PhD, as Wyatt's Terps aptly points out) is so permanent, it only makes sense to accept an offer where you will have no regrets. In my case, the "other" choice was a good school, but the fit wasn't there, and no amount of prestige or wishcasting would make it so. I selected a school that felt right the whole way along, and I'd recommend you do the same. Best of luck, whichever way you go. We're all in for an amazing ride.

In off the waitlist at LSU. If anyone has a particularly positive or negative story/anecdote/blatantly unsourced rumor to share about LSU, I'm all ears. Congrats to all getting good news this week, or next.

Hi, That's not so many years away. For example, I got into 6/8 PhD programs this year, with one waitlist that I think will come through, 15 years post M.A. We should talk; I think I can help. PM me if you'd like, and welcome to the community! Hope to hear from you.

I'm not a UCR student, but I have lived in Riverside for years and currently live a few miles from the campus. If you have questions about the city proper and what it's like to live here, feel free to PM me. And good luck to each of you! It's a good school, and I am friends with two of the core professors, most particularly Steve Axelrod. Take care, and send questions if you'd like.

To the OP: I respect your position, and I appreciate that you have a forum in which to say it. I'm not going to run from views that oppose my own. It's an important topic for sure, one that we each have to think through in our own way, and on which we have to reach our own conclusions. So the exchange of views is what matters to me. You have spoken, as have I. That's a good thing. Glad to hear you're doing well--honestly. You made a difficult call, and lived to tell about it. as I said, take care, and good luck. I appreciate hearing your perspective.

Your concern for my (our?) well-being is admirable, if a bit odd. If you aspire to be the voice in the wilderness, then kudos for your selflessness. Short of that, or perhaps directly because of it, I'm not sure why you're at all concerned with what I do with my life. Surely it can't matter to you that you could save another soul, could it? It's not a question I plan to ponder. Take care, and good luck.

I bet we can both think of better ways to spend these days than thinking about competing PhD offers, amirite? Hang in there, man, and I'll do the same.

What an intelligent, eloquent (!) and relevant post this is; I must admit I've wondered the same thing, albeit from the personal, "passed over" angle, not so much other students' attitudes. Having been waitlisted at two schools, and now offered full support at one, I too have wrestled with the legitimacy question: "if I'm so good, why did you pursue other candidates first?" Sometimes, despite knowing rank orders are idiosyncratic, I wonder if *I* could ever feel comfortable and wanted at a school where I wasn't in the top initial tier of applicants. Sure, I know outcomes vary, and I might be a raging success--having excelled in law school, which is as competitive an environment as academia offers inasmuch as grades come directly at the expense of your classmates, and hard curves leave much of the class with subpar GPAs--so I know from the struggle to achieve in school. Once you're in, no one cares how you got in, and if you're that good, you'll do well regardless of pedigree. I also know, intellectually, that an application on paper can't measure someone's want-to, their drive, and while those initially stronger candidates who were the first chosen might very well be that good, even better than me, I could just as likely fly higher than they. Ypink, I think in the end this is an individual question, one that implicates our pride and sense of ourselves, more so than our classmates. When you have been in a zero-sum game like law school, it is no longer the me vs. my classmates that's the question: it's more a matter of personal feelings of adequacy and our basic human need for validation. Do we think we're good enough, even if our validation is slow in coming? I say yes, but to be honest, I have dark moments and sad days where I gnaw on the waitlist question and wonder what I did wrong. I have even contemplated taking a funded offer where I was a first-round choice, over a higher-ranked school where I wasn't. I continue to consider it. Ypink, I respect your courage in saying what many of us are no doubt thinking. I appreciate and want to validate your honesty--you are most definitely not alone-:and I consider this one of the most important posts of the season. I'm curious what others have to say, because there are others grappling with the waitlist beast in their private thoughts. I appreciate your comments, and stand with you, resolute.

Thank you, mk-8. Your words mean a lot. 26 days until we sit down to a buffet of chaos, with a side dish of wackiness. I can't wait.

The DGS has personally told me as such, but I think we both understand the situation well enough. When you want to keep as many good candidates on the hook for as long as possible, you use coded language like "highly likely" or "top tier," that allows you to be wrong without having guaranteed anything. I don't blame them at all, because they're just doing their job--it's the way this particular sausage gets made, and I'm OK with that--but I'm not counting on that funding coming through. It's an intriguing possibility at this point, but not something I'm actively relying on. Are you waiting on any other schools, like, oh, everyone else on this fabulous board? Take care, and let's fight the good fight against the funding hegemony, huh?

Great post. What you're describing, mk-8, is a real conundrum. It almost becomes a matter of going where you "should" want to go, based on the narrative that says prestige and research options are what we should want as burgeoning professionals. But the softer factors that speak to us as human beings, our comfort in our environment and our need to interact with like-minded people we can relate to and "fit" with, often gets lost, unnecessarily, in the translation. I am wrestling with the idea that I "should" go to the top-rated program because this is a professional degree and a serious endeavor, it's my future, etc etc etc. I know all of that, being in my 40s and having had careers as a college instructor and an attorney. I get the professionalizing aspect, and yet I won't ever relinquish my humanity or the things that make me a whole individual, in service of some narrative I didn't help construct. For example, I went to law school in my 30s, not because I expected to get a killer job (though I did fine), but because I thought it would be a cool thing to do with my life, and when I was at the end of said life, I could be proud of myself for doing something that originated and ended with me defining and fulfilling my unique needs. I did it because it was a cool thing to do. I feel the same way about the PhD, which doesn't mean I take it lightly--I am no stranger to hard work, having excelled in law school, passed the CA bar on the first try, worked as an attorney, inter alia. I merely like (hope?) to think I have it in perspective: I will work harder than I ever have to be successful, but the reasons why I pick a particular program over another won't only be those stemming from the narrative. I also want to be happy, comfortable, and "fit." The sermon has now ended. Please drive home safely. Thanks for your post, mk-8. I've been itching to put those thoughts into print for some time now. Take care and good luck.

Yup, everything. Don't let me be the eleventy-billionth person to say this, but I have attended five institutions, with degrees from three and 6 units from each of two others, one of which was UMD (long story, ay yi yi). Every school to which I applied (all eight) wanted all five sets. That's 40 sets! Maybe I should have gone into math, amirite? So, yes. Are you any closer to a list of schools, other than (I think you said within eight hours of your present location?) what you have mentioned? I think you handled it intelligently, WT, even if you didn't always think the MA first was also best. I could never have tackled a PhD without first doing my Master's. Best of luck as you sally forth toward your dreams.

I've visited three of my top four choices: South Carolina is the only one I haven't seen, and I'll fix that in the second week of April, a.k.a. The Week We All Lose Our Collective Minds. To echo what's been said, the visits were SO helpful in forming impressions, meeting people and just soaking up the qi of the campus and community. I'm mulling over two funded offers (Univ. of Louisiana and South Carolina), and a third that's likely to become funded (UNC Greensboro). So while the visits have helped me make a rough rank order, in the end I'll have to zen it and cast my decision irretrievably out into the world. I don't want to be wrong, but then again, we're privileged to even be thinking about earning our doctorates; in the final accounting, I'd say any school we attend, under any circumstances, is pretty cool. I am pulling for the people on this board to get where they want to go, like EmmaJava and Sarabethke. Say a prayer, or just shout to the heavens real loud, in hopes that Davis and/or Mississippi are listening. I am optimistic for all of us, as we embark on our great adventure.